Cloud Services

Cost & Asset Management

Allocate shared costs
Published On May 23, 2024 - 11:26 AM

Allocate shared costs

Allocate a single cost item across one or more business entities.
Cost allocation policies allow you to allocate a single cost item across one or more business entities, such as customers, projects, departments, or divisions. This allows you to represent costs more accurately and generate a more accurate chargeback report for shared resources.
You can identify shared costs and allocate the costs to one or more business entities based on fixed percentages or the cloud spend of the business entity.
To find this feature, select
Cost Allocation
 located under
Settings
.
To learn more about navigating to the different services from each tenant, refer to Landing page navigation or Kyndryl Bridge Landing page navigation.
The cost allocation page displays two tabs on its landing page, from which you can view existing cost allocations or configure business entities to receive them. The tabs are:
  • Cost Allocation
  • Business Entities

Cost allocation

The cost allocation page shows a table with the cost allocations already created, with the following details:
  • Name
    : The cost allocation source name
  • Allocated to
    : A comma-separated list of the business entities where the costs are allocated
  • Type of allocation
    : Type of allocation selected
  • Created date
    : Date of the creation of the allocation
  • Updated data
    : Date in which the allocation was last updated
To modify or remove existing cost allocation policies, use the vertical ellipsis at the end of each row. Options include:
  • Edit/View Policy
    : To revise or inspect the details of an allocation.
  • Delete Policy
    : To remove an existing cost allocation.
Above the table, you will find a search icon that allows you to search for any resources by name; also, you will see the option to customize by hiding or showing the columns you wish to view.

Create a cost allocation

By defining the cost allocation, you can create a new allocation policy to distribute a specific cost between multiple business entities.
  1. Select
    Create Cost Allocation
     on the right side of the cost allocation page.
  2. You're directed to a page for defining the cost allocation policy, including its source and targets, divided into three main sections:
    • Name of Allocation
      : Choose a name for your allocation.
    • Define source
      : Determine the source.
      • Press
        Add Source
         to define a new cost allocation source. On the ensuing page, input your policy's name and select the desired filters to define your source. Available filters include:
        • Provider
        • Billing Account
        • Asset Account
        • Category
        • Asset Type
        • Provider Tag
    • Cost Distribution
      : Establish the entities for cost distribution and add business entities.
  3. Click
    Save
     to save your configurations.
The chosen filters will influence the asset list below the graph and its visual representation.

Edit or delete cost allocations

To edit or delete a cost allocation, select
Cost & Asset Management
  located under
Settings.
  1. On the cost allocation tab, you will find a table with a list of items that are your cost allocations. Click the ellipses and select:

Integrating AWS container metering for cost allocation

The platform supports AWS container metering for namespace cost allocations, enhancing resource management precision. Access this feature by selecting the
View/Edit
 button for any policy. On the
Edit Cost Allocation
 page, notable sections include:
  • Name of the Allocation
    : Identify your policy.
  • Edit source
     under
    Define source
    : Modify the allocation's foundation.
  • Type of Allocation
     (
    Container Metered
    ) under
    Cost distribution
    : Specifies that the policy is tailored for container metering, offering options like
    Edit Cost Distribution
     for customized allocation strategies.
  • Cost distributed among Namespaces
    : This chart is designed to show the percentage of total costs allocated to different namespaces within a system, likely a containerized environment managed by a service like Kubernetes.
  • The Y-axis of the chart shows the labels for namespaces.
  • On the X-axis, we see a percentage scale that ranges from 0 to 100%, indicating the proportion of costs allocated to each namespace
  • At the bottom of the chart, the  Total allocation will show 100/100 %, which assures you that the chart accounts for all the costs distributed across the namespaces, totaling 100%.
This functionality is particularly beneficial for environments utilizing Kubernetes, which AWS EKS and AWS Fargate support. It enables cost allocation based on namespace utilization for clusters, CPU, and memory. The container-metered view is exclusive to allocations focused on containerized resource management, ensuring targeted and efficient cost tracking.

Add cost distribution for allocation

After creating the cost allocation listed on Create Cost Allocation, add cost distribution. There are different types of allocation, such as even spread, manually assigned percentage, manually weighted, and consumption-based.
On the
Create Cost Allocation
 page, click
Add Cost Distribution
 and select the allocation type:

Even Spread

The percentage of allocation is evenly distributed.
  1. Click
    Add Cost Distribution
     located on
    Cost distribution
     section.
  2. From the
    Business entity name
     drop-down, select a business entity, or create a new one by clicking the
    Add new
    option.
  3. Enter the new name of the business entity; the percentage is defined. Below, you will find a
    Define who can view the cost
    section
    .
  4. In the Define, who can view the cost, select between organizations or teams, and add the context values from the drop-down list? Click
    Apply
    .

Manually assigned percentage

The percentage allocation is assigned manually during the creation of the business entity.
  1. Click
    Add Cost Distribution
     located on
    Cost distribution
     section.
  2. From the
    Business entity name
     drop-down, select a business entity, or create a new one by clicking the
    Add new option
    .
  3. Enter the new name of the business entity, and enter the percentage as you wish to distribute it. Below, you find a
    Define who can view the cost
    section.
  4. In the Define, who can view the cost, select between organizations or teams, and add the context values from the drop-down list? Click
    Apply
    .

Manually weighted

The cost weight is assigned manually during the creation of the business entity.
  1. Click
    Add Cost Distribution
     located on
    Cost distribution
     section.
  2. Enter the business entity name and the weight allocation. Below, you will find a
    Define who can view the cost
    section.
  3. In the
    Define who can view the cost
    , select between organizations or teams, and add the context values from the drop-down list. Click
    Apply
    .

Consumption based

When selecting this type of allocation, the shared cost is allocated to business entities based on the cloud spending of the resources in the Dynamic Resource Groups.
The shared cost for all periods is based on the consumption of the previous period compared to the current period at the time of policy creation.
  1. Click
    Add Cost Distribution
     located on
    Cost distribution
     section.
  2. You can select either of the following options:
    • Select the Dynamic Resource Groups (DRGs) group from the drop-down menu.
    • Add a new Dynamic Resource Group:
      This option will take you to create a new Dynamic Resource Group (DRG); to do so, follow the: Dynamic resource groupsstep-by-step page.
    Cost Distribution is not updated if the data in the Dynamic Resource Groups filter is deleted unless you edit the cost distribution and apply without making any changes. To update the cost as per the cost allocation created, remediation (update cost) must be executed.
  3. Click
    Apply
    . The Cost distribution section is updated, showing a new graph with the total allocation in percentage distributed among the Dynamic Resource Groups (DRGs) previously selected, click
    Save.
A message at the top of the page confirms that a new cost allocation has been created. You can view it on the Cost Allocation tab.
The percentage allocation depends on the dynamic resource group(s) values observed during ingestion. The percentage allocated during the initial allocation would vary from values observed at later points in time-based on ingestion. Upon ingestion, the user will have to re-apply the policy to see the change in the allocated percentage.

Business entity tab

The business entity tab allows you to create and manage business entities such as departments or projects. It also gives you access to a list of business entities created, with their source and visibility details.
  • The new business entities created as part of the Cost Allocation types above are also part of the business entity list.
  • The Business Entity is created only if metrics have been generated. If a metric for the business entity has not been created, the business entity on the table is not reflected.
To find this feature, go to your
Tenant
, click the
Main Menu
 located at the left side of your screen, and then go to the
Cost & Asset Management
drop-down menu. Click
Cost Allocation
 located under
Settings
. Two tabs are displayed: Cost Allocation and Business Entities, click
Business Entitites
.

View or edit business entity

On this tab, you see a table with existing business entities; click the vertical ellipsis located on the right side of the line that includes the business entity and click
Edit/View Business Entity
,  if you wish to eliminate it, click
Delete Business Entity
.
If you wish to edit it, click Edit/View:
  1. Then, define who can view that cost. To do so, select between
    Visibility by Context
     or
    Visibility by Customer
    • By selecting the
      Visibility by Context
       type, you can select one or more context types and values from the drop-down menu. Choose between Organization and Team context, based on the type of business entity and the values.
    • By selecting the
      Visibility by customer type
      , you can select a customer from the drop-down menu.
  2. Click
    Save
     to save the changes.
To create a new business entity, go to Create a cost allocation.
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